The use of V2 structures by Japanese learners of German as a

EUROSLA 2014
University of York
The use of V2 structures
by Japanese learners of German as a foreign language
during classroom interaction
Torsten Andreas, Ingo Fehrmann & Nicole Schumacher (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
https://linguistik.hu-berlin.de/daf/japandaf.php
Late acquisition of V2?
• Evidence in many SLA studies that V2 (XVS, non-subject-initial sentences with the finite verb
in second position) is acquired late
stage 1
words
stage 2
SVX
stage 3
AdvSVX (ungrammatical V3)
stage 4
verb separation (SVfiniteXVinfinite)
stage 5
XVS (V2)
• Proposed determining factors for developmental sequences: processability constraints
(Pienemann 1998), L1 transfer (Diehl et al. 2000), L2 complexity (Lee 2012a,b)
• Little discussion on pragmatic functions of the prefield (but see Bohnacker & Rosén 2008,
Walter & Doolittle 2012)
• Questions: Is XVS difficult per se? Why do elementary learners produce so many SVX structures?
• Needed: elaborated elicitation methods
• Counter evidence against late XVS in Bohnacker (2005, 2006): XVS in elementary learner
varieties Swedish-German (suggested explanation: L1 transfer)
• Counter evidence against late XVS in Hoshii (2010): XVS in elementary learner varieties
Japanese-German (suggested explanation: Chunks), see also Andreas, Fehrmann & Schumacher
(forthcoming)
• Verb placement in learner varieties Japanese-German: evidence from written, non spontaneous
data (Hoshii 2010, Lipsky 2010)
• Needed: data from spontaneous production (oral and written)
Given that both V and Adv are realised, where do Japanese elementary learners of German place the verb during spontaneous production in the classroom?
How many targetlike V2 structures do they produce, how many non-targetlike V3 structures?
Which factors determine the amount of targetlike structures?
Data collection
Project
Spontaneous language production of Japanese learners in
GFL classes
Elicitation methods
focused tasks (Ellis 2003) to elicit non-subject-initial sentences within
meaning based activities
Participants:
20 learners (L1 Japanese, L2 English, L3 German)
in a 4-week language course (A1) in Germany
(2 groups, 48 contact hr each)
Task
Medium
Meaning based
result
Information gap (timetables)
Oral (Skype)
Date
Putting-in-order, Information
gap (map, to-do lists)
Oral
Path drawn on a map Temporal adverbials
Discussion (cards with
provocative statements)
Oral
Agreement about
cultural stereotypes
Data
- video and audio recordings of oral production in the
classroom (31 hr overall, 10 hr evaluable, 2 hr analysed for
V2 so far, 98 sentences)
- spontaneous written production from the classroom,
written data from homework (386 sentences)
Story completion (first sentence) Written
Narrative text
Storytelling (picture)
Written
Crime thriller
Reporting (trip to Dresden)
Written
(Homework)
Report
Oral information gap task: example
Presumed fillings of
prefields
„Find a date for a new skype session,
comparing your timetables“
Skype
recorder
Local adverbials
Variable elements
to establish
text coherence
Data & Results
Example for oral production from the
information gap task (excerpt)
Verb placement in sentences with adverbials
in the prefield – oral and written data
(total amount)
Complete data
17 TN05 a:h (--) am montag
17TN05 a:h (--) on monday
(--) am monta:g (--) ich:: gehe,
(--) on monday (--) i go
18 TN06
18 TN06
19 TN05
19 TN05
20 TN05
20 TN05
21 TN06
21 TN06
22 TN05
22 TN05
23 TN06
23 TN06
24 TN05
24 TN05
AdvVSO (targetlike)
AdvSVO (non-targetlike)
158
149
hm
hm
70
a:h (--) speak'course,
67
von neun uhr,
60
from nine o‘clock
50
neun uhr;
nine o‘clock
bis,
to
bis
to
ä:h (-) vierzehn uhr.
Items without Adv
Adv (other positions)
Adv prefield (German "Vorfeld")
40
- of these:
78/149 AdvVSO (targetlike)
71/149 AdvSVO (non-targetlike)
20
30
10
0
oral (total)
a:h (-) two o‘clock.
AdvVSO (targetlike)
AdvSVO (non-targetlike)
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
80
268
ä:h (--) spreche'kurs,
Verb placement in sentences with adverbials
in the prefield – different tasks
(written data, total amount)
written (total)
classroom
(total)
homework
(total)
Discussion
• Elementary learners place adverbials in the prefield in appropriate contexts when stimulated
by certain tasks, about half of the instances contain targetlike V2 structures.
• The high degree of targetlike structures is unexpected, given the general learners’ stage
of L2 development.
• Evidence for chunks in spontaneous speech were found in our pilot study
(Andreas, Fehrmann & Schumacher forthcoming), but not in our current data analysed so far.
Further analysis of oral data is necessary.
Our data do not support the established correlations between word order and other
aspects of L2 development, e.g. verb morphology, lexical diversity; contra Grießhaber 2013.
• Analysis of subject specific oral data is challenging because of collaborative sentence
production.
• In which ways might our results be influenced by the learners’ L1 (Japanese, cf. the
pragmatic functions of sentence initial elements) or the L2 (English, cf. the high frequency
• XVS is not difficult per se – but the amount of targetlike V2 structures depends on the medium
of AdvSVO)?
(fewer targetlike structures in oral vs. written production) and the task setting
(fewer targetlike structures in classroom writings vs. homework).
Learners seem to draw on their explicit knowledge of V2 in less spontaneous production
as indicated by self-corrections in their texts.
Literature
Andreas, T. , Fehrmann, I. & Schumacher, N. (forthcoming): Spontane Sprachproduktion japanischer Lernender im DaF-Unterricht. Fandrych, C. (2003): Zur Textlinguistik des Vorfelds. In: Thurmair, M./Willkop, E.-M. (eds.): Am Anfang war der Text. 10 Jahre
Eine Pilotstudie. In: Hoffmann, S. / Sohrabi, P. (eds.): Kognition und Spracherwerb. Bozen: BUP.
„Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache“. München: Iudicium, 173-196.
Lee, M.-Y. (2012a): Das Rätsel von SVO beim Erlernen des Deutschen - Warum ist SVO so leicht, SOV dagegen so schwer
produzierbar? Zeitschrift für interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht 1, 75-92.
Bohnacker, U. (2005): Nonnative acquisition of verb second. On empirical underpinnings of universal L2 claims. In: den Dikken, M. Grießhaber, W. (2013): Die Profilanalyse für Deutsch als Diagnoseinstrument zur Sprachförderung. In: proDaZ. Deutsch als
& Tortora, O. (eds.): The Function of Function Words and Functional Categories. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 41-77.
Zweitsprache in allen Fächern. Universität Duisburg Essen (https://www.uni-due.de/imperia/md/content/prodaz/
griesshaber_profilanalyse_deutsch.pdf)
Bohnacker, U. (2006): When Swedes begin to learn German: From V2 to V2. Second Language Research 22.4, 443-486.
Lee, M-Y. (2012b): Zusammenhänge zwischen Wortstellungen und Subjekt-Verb-Kongruenz in der lernersprachlichen Entwicklung
bei L2-Lernern des Deutschen. Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik 40.2, 217-241.
(22013):
Chunks für DaF. Theoretischer Hintergrund und Prototyp einer multimedialen
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Lernumgebung. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.
511-538.
Hakansson, G., Pienemann, M. & Sayehli, S. (2002): Transfer and typological proximity in the context of L2 processing. Second
Clahsen, H., Meisel, J. & Pienemann, M. (1983): Deutsch als Zweitsprache: der Spracherwerb ausländischer Arbeiter. Tübingen:
Language Research 18.3, 250-273.
Narr.
Diehl, E. et al. (2000): Grammatikunterricht: Alles für der Katz? Untersuchungen zum Zweitspracherwerb Deutsch. Tübingen:
Niemeyer.
Hohenstein, C. & Kaneyama, S. (2010): Kontrastive Analyse Japanisch-Deutsch. In: Krumm, H.-J . Et al. (eds.): Deutsch als Fremdund Zweitsprache. Ein internationales Handbuch (=HSK 35.1). Berlin: de Gruyter, 593-602.
Lipsky, A. (2010): Vorfeldfehler in Texten von Deutschlernern. Deutsch als Fremdsprache 2, 70-76.
Meerholz-Härle, Birgit & Tschirner, Erwin (2001): Processability Theory: eine empirische Untersuchung. In: Aguado, Karin & Riemer,
Claudia (eds.): Wege und Ziele. Zur Theorie und Praxis des Deutschen als Fremdsprache (und anderer Fremdsprachen). Festschrift
für Gert Henrici zum 60. Geburtstag. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren, 155-176.
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Pienemann, M. (1998): Language Processing and Second Language Development. Processability Theory. Amsterdam: John
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Ellis, R. (1989): Are classroom and naturalistic acquisition the same? A study of classroom acquisition of German word order rules. Hoshii, M. (2010): Erwerb der Verbstellung im Deutschen bei japanischen Lernern - Methodologische Diskussion und Ergebnisse Walter, M. & Doolittle, S. (2012): Vorfeldfortschritte im Deutschen als Fremdsprache. Eine lernerkorpusbasierte Longitudinaleiner Untersuchung im ersten und zweiten Lernjahr. In: Hoshii, M. et al. (eds.): Grammatik lehren und lernen im Deutsch-unterricht Analyse amerikanischer Deutschlerner. Deutsch als Fremdsprache 1, 3-11.
SSLA 11, 305-328.
in Japan - empirische Zugänge. München: Iudicium, 50-68.
Ellis, R. (2003): Task-based Language Learning and Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Skype image taken from:
https://az545221.vo.msecnd.net/skype-faq-media/faq_content/skype/screenshots/fa12033/image022.jpg (25.8.2014)
Many thanks to the teachers Julia Schaaf & Jari Splettstößer and the participants of the language courses for their huge commitment,
to our students in our M.A. course on data elicitation methods, to Julia Welchering for the transcriptions, and to Makiko Hoshii & Amir Zeldes for their help with Japanese.